Saturday, 4 August 2012

Necron Bat Rep: Gauntlet Game 1 - Draigowing w. IG

This is a bit pic heavy, hope you guys appreciate it.. I found it an interesting activity.

Mission:
Scouring

Deployment: Vanguard

GK win roll of to choose half first, they choose the top right.
GK deploy Aegis Defense Line (ADL). Two layered, one in position to give cover to Blob and the other on the front line to give cover to Paladins to stop S8+ (none present in this list, but a damn good 'best practice' to get into).
Night Fight is in.
Draigo –Dust of a thousand worlds (useful)

Necron Over-War-Lord – minus 1 to enemy reserves (irrelevant)

Pal's up front going for mid table Turn1

GK win roll of to deploy first and go first. Both advantages at the early stage going to GK.

NOTE: It turns out I don't have 60 Guardsmen, so the rest of them (20) are hiding invisibly in between their buddies in the same outline and shape. Irrelevant for this exercise as no real templates.

Necrons deploy defensively trying to outrange the 48” guns.. awaiting flier support. This is a tricky process that I have been working on over the last 8-9 play test games. Especially tough with 48" range guns on the GK's - Psyfle's, Auto and Quad..

However, thanks to pre-measuring, this is quite safe to do.. ruins and other terrain on the table help to give decent saves, Night Fight being in on Turn 1 really helps. Ruins plus Shrouding equals pretty damn safe..

GK move forward, running due to night fight. Prescience from
Coteaz on the blob, which moves and snap fires on one Annihilation barge. Only
2 Autocannons from Blob and Command Squad in range/Shrouding. Commander orders self to Bring it Down. Miss. Blob – Miss.
Dreads have moved up and ran to get into position for Turn 2 as well as maintain the 4+ cover from the ADL front layer.

Necron Turn 1.. Defensive movement to await the air support and to let the GK get into position, the idea being to use the superior mobility to get around them. Pre measuring still
feels like cheating:

Dice represent – Yellow: 48” from rear Autocannons –
forcing snap fire. Black are 30” (move through cover) firing range from Paladins, White is the arc to gain cover from the ruin and building from Psyfledreads..
Premeasured and perfect for survivability. The Necrons measured up and then shifted to the left, keeping themselves away from the vast majority of shooting..This is of course in the context of movement for GK army in Turn 2.. it is very good you know, this pre-measuring malarkey. This movement is precise and supremely tactical, keeping the GK advancing to the left of the board, whilst the 4VP objective is out on the lower right of the board. There are 2 3VP objectives in the GK/IG deployment zone, but they can only claim one of them...except...

This was a positioning turn, knowing that most of the GK shooting was out of range made movement the most important phase here. Whilst some Psyfledread shooting was in range of the front barges, to do so would leave them exposed on the wrong side of the ADL and, knowing the fliers were inbound, elected to stay covered.

'Cron 2 – only 2 Haywire Scythes come in.
Dreads have
to be stopped…no matter the cost (Optimus Prime 1989)… gonna have to face the
interceptor fire from the Solodin Quad. Interceptor Fire scores 2 hits, poor
rerolls.. 2 pens, 1 jink… ‘3’ can only snap fire and can only move 18” with no
turn..

Barges all zoom as fast as possible into the middle of the
board, Immortals advance, but not
veiling..just on foot.

Shooting – Dreads are both utterly destroyed by Haywire and
Gauss fire – despite 4+ cover from ADL. Big impact on the game and First Blood
secondary.

Snap firing flier and Tesla ping from Paladin armour..with no Tesla Arcing. Good first offensive turn, would have been far better with 3 or even all 4 fliers on, which is not an unrealistic expectation. Can't complain though. Interceptor stripped a HP, to be expected.

Turn 3.

GK – Paladins move around the dilapidated building to target
the Barges, Coteaz giving them Prescience rerolls, also granting himself
rerolls via Precognition, LoS will always be going onto him for a 2+ with reroll. Try killing
that without low AP necron wankers.

End of GK Turn 3 and 'Cron T3 Movement...

Blob moves up the field, knowing it can only hit its target
– fliers, on 6’s anyway, so Autocannons will be on 6’s.. CCS opens shooting by
ordering the Autocannons to Bring Down the flier. 3 6’s later and 2 failed
jinks and the first flier crashes. whoot!

Prescience results in 15/16 Psycannon hits on the lead
Command Barge.. 6’s to Autopen through rending.. only 2, one 4+ from flat out
made, the pen adds 2 to the roll from open topped and ap2, 4 becomes
6…exploding!

End of GK, 1 flier, 1 CCB..dead. Not bad..

'Cron 3 – Only one empty flier comes on (bought for
Immortals), but not the 3rd Haywire Scythe (d'oh!) and the Crons Veil in and move in for some serious firepower onto
the Paladins.. including 2 risky S8 AP1 flamers..one which 'hit' and the other which scattered in to just 2" away from the Paladins!

One unit of warriors moves back from its Invasion Beam position into backfield ruins and runs deep
inside, ready to lash out and claim one of the objectives nearby, depending
what points are required later in the game (either the 4VP or the 2VP), the other moves around to lend fire
support to the Paladins, also claiming a 2VP objective in the top right of the photo (see right). Both lords move in to possibly charge the paladins Not a great idea, but fuck all else to do apart from stay alive, which is
boring! Plus, I'm hoping shooting will be effective to some degree.

Shooting.. flier on the right has moved in to gun down the
Solodin on the gun.. he’s then gonna fly off the board in turn 4.. Solodin
falls having taken 5 armour saves and rolling poorly.

The mass Cron shooting levels 2 Paladins and 3 Wounds on
Draigo himself..but the sheer volume of 2+ saves made is absolutely insane..
Dice are on fire for the GK..

Shit. Now positioned far too close and will have to tie them up if possible, although I do see an opportunity for sniping Draigo.

Kill Draigo? Let’s try in assault with impact hits from
Chariot.. he’s at the front and would be the only one in contact.. charges are
both made (foot lord and Over-War-Lord) after Overwatch strips a hull point and would have immoblised the
barge if the lord had not taken a wound for Symbiotic Repair..

5 impact hits.. 4 wounds… KILL DRAIGO! Whoot!

Slay the Warlord versus DRAIGOOOOO! Whoot!

Hammerhand from the unit only as Coteaz has used 2 powers
this game turn.

Mindshackles with 3 hits kill another Paladin, Initiative
6/4 pile ins leave 2 after MSS, the hit twice and wounds are saved, the I2
step, the Overlords kill another Paladin and leave one on 1 wound.

I1 Hammer time, only 2 Hammer left including Coteaz.. Paladin misses but Coteaz hits and
wounds 3 times, slaying the Overlord (not the Warlord importantly, who is on
the barge and not close enough to Coteaz for him to strike).

Paladin lose combat, but are stubborn from Coteaz..

Overlord fails ever living. Not bad at all!

Turn 4

GK - Limitations of
the blob are outlined in this turn – Blob moves up, controlling and denying a
total of 7 VP’s from the table, they should be able to reach the 4VP objective too in
turn 6..if it lasts.. however, despite orders the 10 Autocannon shots only
manage to shred 1 HP from the Flier about to exit the board after Jink.

The Paladins gain Prescience and kill 3 Immortals and the
Cyrptek, important for the Overwatch that’s about to happen. They are going to
try and wrap up both Immortal units – ambitious, but perhaps the only way to
win this game. It’s desperation time.

Overwatch from the Secondary charge target with the S8 AP1
flamer does nothing, and despite a RCL of 4” make it and wrap up the two
targets.

Both Hammerhands go off and a Perils drops a wound from a
Paladin (that's 2 on 1W).

Combat is lost by the 'crons – 6 dead Immortals later.. One unit
stays, one flees, unfortunately, it is the Cryptek-less unit that flees, who’ll
just regroup and piss off on foot..they'll probably just drop back and claim the objective in table's bottom left.

'Cron 4 – The remaining flier bombs on and disgorges its
troops in rapid fire range of the blob.

The Immortals regroup and move 3” towards the objective,
later in the turn they run 4” and claim it.

Everything else moves up and guns into the blob..killing
over 30 IG despite half of those being in the ADL cover. They fall back on a 10
and flee from the table on a roll of 8”.. after Tesla jumps, this leaves a
single Autocannon team from the Platoon Command and the CCS has just the
Autocannon and the big dog..

Assault, Barge charges the engaged Paladins, but on the
Coteaz end having swept over the blob in the movement phase.. this means Impact
Hits will go on Coteaz only and could punk him on a armour roll of 1..remember,
he has no rerolls this turn! If that doesn’t do it, Mindshackle Scarabs might..

He survives the Impact, Hammerhand goes off on the squad,
Coteaz fails Mindshackles and hits 3 times, wounds 3 times -S8 AP1 hits on the
unit.. kills 2 nearest Paladins.

The Paladins move and charge the middle unit of Warriors,
hoping to slay and overrun into contest range for the 4VP objective.

Despite killing 4 Warriors, the Warriors stay in combat on a
roll of 4.

This will now probably mean a Necron win.

Necron 5 – The fliers sweep in on the command squads and kill
both Autocannons, but the CCS big dog, having gone to ground in ruins, makes
his saves. He survives and does not flee, claiming a 3VP objective, but it has freed up the other 3VP objective.

The Overlord charges into Paladin combat, doesn’t kill
anything with Imapct Hits, MSS’s the nearest Paladin who kills himself, the 2
remaining Paladins kill 2 Warriors, the Overlord then kills the next Paladin,
leaving 1 Paladin and 1 CCS member on the board.

Necron win.

Long ass report, but
hope it shows some insight and what not into the Crons and how I use them, as
well as how Paladins operate and can be killed still.. I was a bit worried
about them not falling at all to shooting, but removing Draigo and then Coteaz
later with excellent positioning exploitation from the Crons as well as
effective speed bumps worked well.. although I didn’t WANT to use 2 10 man Immortal
units as speed bumps!! 22 men, SCORING men, is a lot to be caught up,
especially when they hold so much firepower.. But it took almost the entire
armies shooting to put 7 wounds on the Paladins, then 2 Overlords charging with
Impact hits and MSS and AP1 Warscythes, followed by the Paladins
multi-assaulting 20 Immortals and another charge by the Barge War-Over-Lord to
get them.. that didn’t even work as they killed the Immortals that stayed and
then charged in to the middle of the board.. A further War-Over-Lord charge
tied them up and reduced them to 1 Paladin.. but they are still just so tough..

Granted, that was all
that was left on the board at the end of the game.Powerful Necrons. Puts confidence in me that is can handle 2+ saves.. You remember (probably not) when we were talking about initial reactions to 6th and I was unsure why people were miffed about AP3 power weapons.. this is how you kill Terminators - with torrent fire. Alternatively you can do it with high quality & strength shooting - to be fair.. you don't do it in combat.. No changes to the 'Crons. Draigowing needs a Commissar for the Blob. Or Coteaz stays with them exclusively. I mentioned that in the list post on Friday.. think it has to be. That'd have kept them on the board, but then the Necrons could have shot them off on T5, didn't even roll for T6.. But it is needed. Or a Commissar.

Your thoughts or questions? Faulty tactics? What to do differently..hindsight being so accurate after all..

Hey Sabe. As can be seen from the pics, Coteaz (Blue Marine) was attached to Paladins.. the only error was Coteaz providing Prescience to the Blob.. which of course, he can't do.. I found this out after I had played and photographed the game.. also yesterday (Friday).. It was a small error that clearly didn't help the GK out too much!

Re LM: Yeah, I rolled for it, unfortunately it failed..It is still an important rule for sure, really can help.. I agree, it is less important due to changes to Glancing Hits.. but as you say dude, still important..